Richard Says “Sexual Love is a Far Inferior Thing to Friendship”

Richard says sexual love is about need while friendship is a relationship freely chosen.

Richard says sexual love often ends in disappointment and betrayal, while friendship deepens throughout life.

Richard says at its best sexual love matures into friendship while at its worst it is an entirely selfish transaction.

Richard’s most fulfilling sexual relationship was with a picture of a naked woman in a cowboy hat he found on google and his most intense friendship was with an imaginary French count named Eustace St. John who comforted him as a child when his parents were fighting.

Richard is a lonely character, but some of his reflections, perhaps, are not entirely without merit.

I used to worry because whenever I brushed my teeth I would spit out blood. Sometimes I would watch other people brushing their teeth and marvel at the shiny white foam that came out of their mouths and sparkled in the sink. The best I could manage was a sort of magnolia, but at times my spit was bright red.

Then I saw an advertisement in the newspaper. It said something like “Hey you! Are you spitting blood when you brush your teeth? You might have gum disease! That is not cool, dude! You should seriously get that checked out, and you know what? We can do it for you for the bargainaceous price of blah blah blah…”

That cheered me up because I realised that the following conditions must have been met for it to be worth someone’s while to put that advertisement in the paper:
1) Lots of people spit blood when they brush their teeth. I couldn’t be their target audience, not by myself.
2) It doesn’t harm them much. If you need an advertisement to persuade you to get medical attention it must be because it isn’t a medical problem you’ve got. People know when they need to see a doctor mostly, and when they don’t it’s the government who tell you about it, at least in England.